News Article

The Supreme Court has granted permission for an appeal in the legal case considering whether or not care workers who work “sleep-in” shifts are entitled to the national minimum wage. 

In July 2018, the Court of Appeal, ruled that care workers who sleep overnight at a client’s home are not entitled to the minimum wage while they are sleeping. 

In its judgment of two similar cases in the care sector – Royal Mencap Society v Claire Tomlinson-Blake and John Shannon v Jaikisham and Prithee Rampersad  – the appeal judges found that employees who stay at a disabled, elderly or vulnerable person’s house overnight are only entitled to the minimum wage while they are carrying out their duties – not for the full duration of their sleep-in shift. 

In last summer’s judgment, Lord Justice Nicholas Underhill said: “Sleepers-in… are to be characterised for the purpose of the regulations as available for work… rather than actually working… and so fall within the terms of the sleep-in exception. 

More than 600 care support workers employed by the Alternative Futures Group have recently voted to take strike action over cuts to their pay for sleep-in shifts. Unison says they are facing a significant reduction in their wages and stand to lose as much as £15 for each sleep-in shift and more than £2,000 a year 

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